Author: John Mary
Publication: Outlook
Date: October 7, 2002
A prison is a place for criminals,
not heroes. But that's only if you are not Abdul Nasser Madani. The rogue
politician, an accused in the infamous Coimbatore blast that targeted L.K.
Advani, will perhaps soon be set free-thanks to the four-and-a-half years
he's spent in detention without being chargesheeted. Support for his release
is growing in Kerala. The Left parties and the Muslim League form one end
of a strange consensus that's building around the issue. At the other end,
noises from within the udf too are getting increasingly soft on the blast
'mastermind'.
All in all, chief minister A.K.
Antony is in a fix. Though he now feigns ignorance, a high-powered committee
of the udf has asked the CM to work to secure Madani's release. The pro-Madani
camp in the udf has one handle: a purported deal offered by Antony lieutenant
Oommen Chandy and ex-udf convenor K. Sankaranarayanan that the front would
do everything possible to get him freed in return for his support in the
assembly polls.
Bearing down on Antony is also old
bugbear K. Karunakaran, who has found the situation fit to seek more humane
treatment of Madani. To complicate matters, Madani's wife and children
have threatened to fast unto death, beginning October 16, outside the secretariat.